Making Acquaintances Through Photographs

“Another hundred people just got off of the train,” sings Marta, a fast-talking New Yorker in Stephen Sondheim’s urban musical, “Company.” The ode to the blur of humanity—all together in one place but still entirely separate—could be the theme song for “Basement,” a new exhibition that opens Monday in the Stamp Gallery.

Curated by Sydney Feurer ’29, in one of two undergraduate-curated exhibitions held every summer at the gallery, “Basement” strives to get to know some of the nameless people who scurry by us as we keep our faces glued to our phones. “It’s a way to recognize that the people that you walk by have a life and are part of a community,” said Feurer. (The name of the exhibition, said Feurer, is a nod to an invisible but essential foundation—like the lives led by people we don’t know.)